Using Arduino as ISP

Yesterday I attended a workshop at the Dallas Makerspace on using the Arduino as an ISP for smaller microcontrollers. As most of you know, there can be many advantages to using a smaller microcontroller instead of a full Arduino or Pi or whatever including size, battery life, cost, etc.

We essentially followed the same directions listed here on High-Low Tech to program an ATtiny85. It was amazingly easy to use the Arduino to program the 85s. Those little beauties are under a dollar and can do quite a bit! So far I’ve gotten the ATtiny85 to blink not one, but TWO LEDs. I’m really interested in trying out the slightly larger ATtiny84 coupled with a little 433 mhz radio module to make a super cheap wireless sensor system. Hopefully you’ll see that soon! Thanks to Ralph for teaching the class.